


hungry for the kill (but this hunger, it isn't you)

by goldengrahams



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Canon-Compliant, Episode: c02e097 The Fancy and the Fooled, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Introspection, Intrusive Thoughts, Self-Hatred, Shadowgast (Implied/Pre-Relationship), Somewhat Positive Ending, Violent Thoughts, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24282598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldengrahams/pseuds/goldengrahams
Summary: “I don't know if you want it or not, but I'll be staying around for the end. I consider you a sister still, even if you don't share the sentiment.”He’d told the scourger. It’s so similar to what he’s saying to Essek now. Essek remembers how the other conversation had ended.Hot blood, Caleb’s blood spilling over, soaking his coat, dripping onto the dungeon floor, his clever, nimble hands grasping desperately at his throat, the quick panicked flutter of his breath.It could go the same way this time.He has a dagger in his robes. He rarely uses it-- only sometimes for spellwork, but it’s there all the same and he isn’t particularly dexterous but none of the others are close enough to stop him.---Episode 97 but Essek POV and he has intrusive thoughts.
Comments: 16
Kudos: 97





	hungry for the kill (but this hunger, it isn't you)

**Author's Note:**

> _So I looked into your eyes  
>  And I saw the reflection  
> Of a coward that you and I both hate very much  
> And then I grabbed a knife  
> And I let the blood out of your throat  
> And I smashed those tiny mirrors inside of your skull  
> And I got to thinking  
> If I don't go to Hell when I die I might go to Heaven_  
> -"Bad, Bad Things" by Andrew Jackson Jihad
> 
> The conversation from 97/98 jumps forward quite a bit but I had something I wanted to accomplish so sue me. Also the interruptions of Essek's thoughts might get a bit messy but they're supposed to be so *shrug*.
> 
> Title from "Hunger" by Of Monsters and Men

Essek feels hands on his face, Caleb’s hands, and his head is swimming. Caleb is kneeling before him and he wishes more than anything that his brain would stop working for just a moment, that he could stop thinking so hard every moment of his life. Essek is squeezing his eyes shut because he can’t look for longer than a second or the tears he’s been holding back for so long now will spill out and show what a coward he truly is. Caleb clears his throat quietly, continuing his speech and Essek is listening but only slightly. His head aches and he feels like a caged animal. He wants to lash out. He’s afraid, he’s angry, he’s grieving the loss of the only people he’s ever cared for in his miserable life.

“These people can change you. You were not born with venom in your veins. You learned it.” He blinks his eyes open against his better judgement. Caleb is staring at him, his blue eyes intense with meaning. “You have a rare opportunity here, Thelyss. One chance to save yourself, and we are offering it. And I am pleading with you to find your better self. He is still there.” He looks away and he feels the tears spill finally, hot and angry. In his mind’s eye they are not in the hold of the Balleater. They are in the Dungeon of Penance and Caleb’s features are thrown into sharp relief by shadow and Essek is in chains, waiting for the right moment to strike, the right moment to betray Caleb’s trust.

 _“I don't know if you want it or not, but I'll be staying around for the end. I consider you a sister still, even if you don't share the sentiment.”_ He’d told the Scourger. It’s so similar to what he’s saying to Essek now. Essek remembers how the other conversation had ended.

_Hot blood, Caleb’s blood spilling over, soaking his coat, dripping onto the dungeon floor, his clever, nimble hands grasping desperately at his throat, the quick panicked flutter of his breath._

It could go the same way this time.

He has a dagger in his robes. He rarely uses it-- only sometimes for spellwork, but it’s there all the same and he isn’t particularly dexterous but none of the others are close enough to stop him. 

It would be so easy. Two movements of his hand. He’s studied the body for spells, to understand how it works and moves, how certain spells affect it. He knows how much blood loss it takes to kill a human, how easy it is to have them bleeding out on the floor. He knows the spot to thrust the dagger into that will yield the quickest results. 

He’s more powerful than Caleb-- more powerful than the Scourger. She hadn’t done the damage she’d wanted to but he could so easily. He could stab Caleb and shove him away, then teleport as the others were frozen in shock. Teleporting only takes a word, he could be gone in seconds, never to be heard from again. 

He can picture Caleb’s blood on his hands so easily and maybe that’s what scares him the most.

Handsome, lovely Caleb, who has forgiven him so easily, so resolutely. His party outfit is so well-suited to him, and very attractive. He imagines it soaked in blood and feels his pulse hammering in his throat.

“There is no path to redemption for me,” he murmurs. _I’ve pictured you dead a thousand times before this night but never once did I wield the knife._ “If what has been done comes to light, if what you are seemingly looking to correct is known... “ he pauses. Would he kill them, if it let him go free? If he could put all this behind him? Would he really? The thought makes him sick to his stomach. He truly must be irredeemable to imagine killing them when they’ve been nothing but good to him. To imagine killing Caleb when he’s been nothing but intelligent and attentive and kind. “... then I am a dead man.” _You could be too_ , he thinks, _if you stick around me. Even if I don’t kill you myself, I would hold myself responsible. I’ve already hurt you now, even if it wasn’t physical, and you still forgive me. Maybe this would finally make me irredeemable in your eyes. Maybe that would be easier than being forgiven._

He startles, feeling lips press against his forehead, between his eyebrows.

 _No_ , he thinks _, no, no, no._

_There’s blood on his hands and chest now, dripping from Caleb’s throat. He stabbed him, right? He stabbed him. Caleb should be bleeding out on his lap. The plan backfired. Caleb fell forward and he’s cradling him now as he bleeds out in his arms. His fault. This is his fault. He’s disgusting. Stabbing a man and then cradling him like he deserves to give him comfort._

Caleb is kissing him and he feels like the worst creature alive.

_Selfish and violent and disgusting and undeserving._

“Maybe you and I are both damned,” Caleb says, and his voice is soft around the edges. “But we can choose to do something, and leave it better than it was before.” 

_However damned you think you are, Caleb, I am a thousand times more damned._

“"You weren't part of the plan and now you're all in terrible danger for the things that you know.” Caleb scoffs.

“So be it.”

_The blood pools to a rest on the floor._

_He will never stop being damned, being disgusting, having these horrific thoughts about the only people he’s ever cared for. What if one day he acts on them? What if one day he attacks them because he feels trapped or cornered?_

_So be it._

Perhaps Caleb understands him even better than he thought possible. He wonders if Caleb has the same thoughts he does, sometimes. 

The Caleb in his mind’s eye stares at him and the clerics leap forward to heal him. Not dead, then, just badly injured. He can live with that.

He wonders if the Caleb in his mind could forgive him as well.

The blood on his hands dries and begins to flake away.

\---

“Make no mistake. We do not trust you.” he swallows and squeezes his eyes shut again.

“Good. That’ll help you survive.” He still feels the phantom warmth of blood on his hands and struggles to remind himself it isn’t real.

“It doesn’t mean we don’t hope for you.”

_You hoped for that Scourger girl too._

_I want your hope to mean something this time._

When he opens his eyes, his hands are clean.


End file.
